Chapter 11: Shaken

lovelyladyjane

3 years ago

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Allen hadn’t slept since Stryker was assassinated. He paced back and forth from his quarters to the infirmary and back again at least a dozen times an hour. Even the training room hadn’t given him any relief, now that Marcus was otherwise occupied.

He could feel Tracy’s eyes on him, full of sympathy. Her presence was the only thing that was keeping him from completely falling apart. He kept playing the raid on PSO over and over in his head, kicking himself for what happened to Charity. “I should have protected her,” he muttered into a plateful of mashed potatoes.

“From flies? What were you going to do, talk them to death?”

Allen rolled his eyes at her, but she had a point. They were sitting in the common room, pretending to eat something. Or rather, Tracy had eaten plenty, but Allen was still pushing food around on his plate from an hour ago. “I don’t know. Something.” Unable to sit still, he shoved away from the table and stood in front of the large bay windows overlooking the lake. This side of the building showed an expansive landscape of the city spread across the skyline. From here he could see the Skyway, a bridge that connected one part of Alliance City to another across a large canal. It was the perfect setting for an epic villain attack, if movies were any indication. In real life, that was a terrible idea. It was in full view of Delta’s headquarters. Evil couldn’t twitch its fingers on that bridge without someone noticing.

Of course, they’d been terrible at seeing every other threat coming.

“Allen, listen. You’re obviously up against someone who’s thought of everything. The whole point of what attacked Charity was that you wouldn’t know it happened. Hell, the timing was even on purpose. You all came back in a panicked rush to find the whole place turned upside down. Of course they’re going to forget to check for something as inconsequential as bug bites.”

He didn’t answer, and she made a face at him. “Allen, sit down.” He sat. He knew better than to argue with that tone of voice. She put a hand on his. “This is not your fault. Now stop beating yourself up, because if you wear yourself out with guilt, you’re not going to have anything left to kick the crap out of whoever’s behind this.” Tears filled his eyes despite himself. She was right, of course. She smiled at him. “You’ve always been stronger than even you ever knew.” Her hand stroked his cheek. “I love you, Allen.”

It thrilled him still to hear that. After so long of hiding his feelings, terrified of screwing up their friendship, it felt like a dream to hear it reciprocated. Somehow their chairs had gotten really close, and the way she leaned into him brought them closer still. Her blue eyes were so full of that ineffable emotion that Allen needed right now, and her lips were inches away from his. He leaned forward, entranced as she too closed the distance between them. “I love you too, Tracy,” he whispered just before their lips met.

That’s when the glass around them imploded into the building with an agonizing sonic scream.

* * * *

“Allen? Hey Allen, buddy, wake up.”

It was Jayson’s voice, Allen was pretty sure, but it sounded like he was underwater. He rolled over with a groan onto a bed made of shards of glass. Tracy. He sat up straight and his head jerked around as he tried to find his girl. She was with a medic, wincing as the woman pulled a shard of glass from her arm. She said something that Allen didn’t catch. “Sorry?” He scrambled over to her.

“I’m okay, Allen, really.” She didn’t look okay. She was bleeding from a myriad of cuts all over her body; however, the medic appeared to be a healer, so before Allen could get too worked up, the cuts disappeared.

Brusquely, the medic stood and touched Allen, and everything all of the sudden stopped sounding like it was so muffled. She was gone before Allen could thank her.

“The hell was that?” he asked Jay. “Also, weren’t you…somewhere else?” He wasn’t quite sure how to define that. ‘Out of the country’ didn’t seem to qualify. ‘Out of this world’ was accurate, but just sounded weird.

Jay shrugged. “Got me. I’m about to hit communications, maybe some satellite imagery will help. And my wife and I just got back an hour ago.”

Allen trotted along behind him. “Did you…did you find out anything?” He wasn’t really sure this was his business, but he would be damned if he was going to be shut out. Jay didn’t really seem to mind. Either that, or his mind was still in a fog. The man had lost his best friend. If he’’d ever lost Tracy…well, he was surprised Jay was still standing, truth be told.

Jayson stopped and looked at him. He looked so tired. “Nothing.”

Drake was in the communications room, which wasn’t a huge surprise, all things considered. Some of the others were there too, most notably Sam. “Are rescue efforts deployed over the city?” she asked Jayson.

He nodded. “What do we know?” Jayson asked Drake.

“It’s global, that’s for sure. Reports are coming in from all over the world.”

A technician called out, “We’re getting reports of combined earthquakes and floods from New Zealand, Chile, and Argentina.”

The list went on, and Allen tuned it out, instead watching with fascination as Drake flipped through the holographic satellite images. Jayson was going through the roster of Delta heroes, his hands flickering through the intangible billboards, putting together teams to deploy all over the world. Allen waited for his name to be called.

“What the…hell?” Drake stared at the display, puzzled. With all the uncertainty that was already plaguing them, that worried Allen. Drake was never puzzled about anything. “Jayson, look at this.”

Jay stopped mid-sentence and looked at the display. By the shape of the land mass displayed, it looked like Antarctica. His face echoed Drake’s puzzlement. “What the hell is Atlantis doing here?”

Allen blinked. Tracy asked the question before he could. “Wait, Atlantis? As in, Lost City of?”

Sam’s eyes flickered over to Tracy. “What’s she doing here? This is not a good time for a visit. We are in the middle of multiple deployments and it seems we will be initiating a highly classified mission. I do not have time to be lenient on this.”

Allen opened his mouth to protest, but Tracy just squeezed his hand. “Good luck, Hero Boy, she whispered, and then she was gone out the door. Allen felt a great emptiness at his side.

Drake looked at Jayson. “Atlantis appears in the middle of a widespread Fae attack? That’s not an coincidence.” Jay nodded.

“I agree,” Sam said. “I’ll be taking a delegation with me to speak to the Elves. Mr. Herrington, presuming you’re still taking point on the Stryker investigation, you may want to be there. Mr. Allison, please get a hold of your wife. We’ll need her language comprehension. Mr. Hachirobei, you too. Spark Plug, Inferno, Spirit, you’’ll form a bodyguard for the delegation. Suit up, everyone, we leave in ten.”

Allen lost no time in donning his custom-made leather jacket over a red t-shirt. He slipped on a pair of black fingerless gloves as an added touch. He had no mask. A secret identity was a little useless after a video of you throwing a lunchroom table gets a few hundred thousand hits. He met the others in the briefing room.

“I get why I’m going, cause I’m awesome,” Mitch was saying, ““But why did they want bring a geek like you?” He poked Marcus in the side.

Jay raised his eyebrow at Mitch. “You control fire. With your mind. And you draw the line at an advanced city?”

Mitch shrugged. “Valid point.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s an actual reason Sam chose you two,” Jay continued. “The Elves wield elemental magic based around Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Light, and Darkness. That makes Mitch an obvious choice. Fire magic basically controls energy, so Marcus’ abilities count too. Sam wants to come into this diplomatic meeting with a position of strength. Both sides will be doing all kinds of political posturing. Don’t make a move unless you’re ordered to, is that understood?

Allen chorused his “Yes, Sir,” along with the other boys.

* * * *

Drake didn’t like not knowing what was going on. First the Fae showed themselves to be more organized than they had any right to be. Then they become convincing suspects in arranging the assassination of a prominent Delta member—twice if one counted Sam’s poisoning attempt. And then, coincidentally, Charity gets infected with a…something that kept her in a coma. If they hadn’t caused either incident, they were doing a damn good job of making sure no one could find out who did. As far as Drake was concerned, that made them equally responsible.

He was next.

He couldn’t shake that feeling. Jayson made fun of him for being paranoid all the time, but hell, he was still alive, wasn’t he? He admitted to being a overly cautious, but in the time that he was infected by the Fae, he’d learned what people were truly capable of. If he hadn’t been paranoid before, that would have been enough to push him over the edge.

He was positive the Fae was behind everything. Biased? A little. Having one of the buggers so deep inside him he still saw it when he blinked would do that to a man. Racist? Maybe. But he understood their nature better than anyone else’s.

As usual, he used the application programmed into his phone to teleport with the group to Atlantis. Jay was there for transport, but he never teleported with Jay. It made him sick to his stomach every time. They had an unspoken gentleman’s agreement between the two of them: Jay didn’t teleport Drake, and Drake didn’t use his magnetic abilities to affect Jay’s metal prosthetic. Both knew damn well that the enemy wouldn’t go so easy on them, but in their sparring matches they followed that rule to the letter.

Atlantis was unquestionably beautiful. Even in his disgruntled state, Drake couldn’t suppress his inner engineer as his gaze traveled over the marble spires. The material that built the city was of a shifting mother-of-pear color, with pinks, greens, and blues intertwining among each other beneath the surface. Runic carvings covered every square inch of the place, written in every element. Their purpose was as intricate as they were diverse; everything from breathable air to irrigation to lighting. A soft glow lit every square inch of the place. Not a shadow was in sight.

A delegation of Elves approached them. They were tall, their average height at about six feet five inches. Their hair ranged in color from a deep raven black to ice white, and everything in between. In that matter, they were much like humans. But it was their eyes that were different. For one thing, they were spaced just far enough apart to appear alien and give anyone used to human proportions a double-take. The eyes themselves were often pastel colors, the same pink, purple, and green seen in their home’s architecture. Their clothing reflected that as well. They were dressed traditionally, in a manner that hadn’t changed in the last few centuries, let alone in the few years since they’d crossed paths. Their robes flowed over the shoulders, loosely covering their arms and falling nearly to the floor.

There was six of them, with jewelry and tattoos that marked them as mages with their respective elements. Drake recognized Chancellor Rio’kir, the Elvin political leader. He had black hair and slate gray eyes and nearly met seven feet tall. On each wrist he wore metal bracers, engraved with the image of a solemn dwarf with his arms crossed over his chest in salute. With those markings, Drake would have known him to be an Earth mage, if he didn’t know that already.

There were others, some who had risen to rank within the last few years. A woman with red hair in an elaborate updo wore earrings shaped like dragons. She was a Light mage. Elaborate designs on her clothing in six different colors marked her as the Archmage. To Elves, who worshiped a god of knowledge, that made her the spiritual leader as well as the most knowledgeable mage. It was likely that she knew more magic than the rest of them put together.

Wispy tendrils of blue crawled up the Water Mage’s exposed leg, resolving in an ethereal female figure—a Nymph. The Air Mage wore a pendant of a highly stylized Gryphon. The Fire Mage’s ears were adorned with ear cuffs that depicted a squid-like creature called a Fi’chiar.

It was the Darkness Mage that gave Drake the willies. His eyes were purple and his hair a nearly translucent white. He hardly showed signs of age, except maybe around the eyes and mouth. He wore wristbands made of a blackened metal with depictions of children laughing and playing. A closer look would show the ‘children’ to be Fae. Of the six of them, he was the only one that was smiling, which would have been creepy enough even if the smile didn’t seem to carry a hint of twisted malice. He didn’t take his eyes off Drake, or so it felt. Maybe he really was being paranoid.

They were surrounded by armed guards, shields brought to bear, and all manner of weapons pointed at the delegation from Delta. This neither disturbed nor shocked Drake. They had, after all, teleported into Atlantis without warning. He would have been surprised if they were met without suspicion. And now it was Sam’s job to make sure they got to the ‘ask questions’ part without being shot at. He didn’t envy her. No love was lost between him and the woman, but he had to admit, she was damn good at her job.

She spoke in Elvin. “Greetings to the keepers of the knowledge of the All. We come not to impart violence, but to exchange our knowledge with yours. I am Samantha Clive, Director of the Delta Division, and I speak on behalf of the Earthborn.”

Rio’kir approached. “Greetings to you in the name and the knowledge of the All, Samantha Clive. I am Rio’kir, Chancellor and keeper of the knowledge of all diplomacy. Your Delta Division is known to me. We fought side by side with your people against the forces of Kronos.”

“The Shadow Fae provided a formidable enemy in that time, Chancellor Rio’kir. We are grateful for your knowledge that drove them back.”

“And for your assistance.” His gaze traveled to Jay. “Jayson Allison. Maralise. Drake Hachirobei. It gratifies me to see you are well. The knowledge of you and your party was instrumental in binding Kronos.” His eyes flickered. “I note absence of others who stood against the god.”

Meryl translated quickly for Jayson. “Charity London is bound in a deep sleep. My brother…” She swallowed and wrestled for composure. “My brother is dead.””

The Elves were stiff and formal and had a large stick wedged up their collective ass, but they were not without sympathy. Rio’kir approached her and clasped the woman’s hands in his. “May he rest in the knowledge of a life well lived,”” he said gently.

Meryl’s eyes filled with tears, but they didn’t fall. “Thank you.” It was all she could manage. Rio’kir stepped back.

“We believe that the Shadow Fae are involved in his death, if not directly, than in the attempt to cover it up,” Sam said. “Nor do we believe it a coincidence that our Charity London lies in a deep sleep at this point in time. There have also been numerous other incidents that indicate the Fae are amassing an army. Someone is again controlling them, just as Kronos once did.”

Rio’kir’s face darkened. “I may lend knowledge to your hypothesis, Samantha Clive. For it is the Fae that are responsible for our sudden and destructive appearance here in your world.”

The Darkness Mage stepped forward. “I recommend caution to add you to your knowledge, Chancellor. Let us not forget, these are Earthborn. Their motives remain unknown to us.”

Rio’kir turned to him. “These Earthborn are known to me. Their motives align with ours.”

The Darkness Mage fixed them all with that eerie stare. “The motives of Earthborn are complex and capable of deception like that of the Fae. For the sake of expounding our knowledge, let me examine their minds.”

“Oh, hell no.” Drake spoke for the first time. “I have no interest in anyone poking around in my head anymore.” He could have said it quite emphatically in Elvin, but he chose English. The thought of someone reading his mind made him feel ornery, so the more he could piss off any of them who didn’t speak English, the better.

The Elf raised his eyebrow. “I should think, Drake Hachirobei, someone with as much knowledge as you posses would wish all to know if it.” Still with that creepy smile.

“I got my reasons, jackass. Most of them have to do with a Fae using my head as a campground for a year.”

He chuckled this time, and Drake found himself really wishing he’d stop that. “All the more reason to examine the knowledge you poses.” He scanned the rest of the group. ““Our negotiations cannot continue until I have examined the knowledge of each one in the delegation.”

“Then I’m out.” Drake gave a casual two-fingered salute to Sam before he started thumbing through his phone for his teleportation application.

He never got that far. A whispered spell from the Darkness Mage brought forth black tentacles of shadow that wrapped around Drake’s arms. They knocked the phone out of his hand and pinned him to the ground. Jayson shouted in protest, Allen came damn close to punching an Elf in the face, and Marcus and Mitch flared with their energy.

“That’s enough.” Sam’s quiet command called them off. ““Mr. Hachirobei, this tantrum of yours is unnecessary.” She nodded at the Darkness mage. “If it would make you feel more secure, then by all means.”

Jayson made some useless protest, the words of which were lost in the sheer agony of the mind probe. It didn’t need to hurt this much, and Drake knew it, but the mage wasn’t going to go gentle now, not when he had Drake at his mercy.

Drake bit down on the pain. He wasn’t going to scream and give this dick the satisfaction. He could feel the oily fingers of the spell in his head, dredging up memories he was perfectly satisfied to keep hidden. The Mage went deep, right to his childhood. He watched his mother slip away from him over and over again, consumed by cancer. The Mage was doing it on purpose now.

When he finally got done with that memory, Drake relived the abandonment he felt when his dad was never around. By the time Delta got to him, he was already a bitter old man at sixteen. That only got worse when he found out that Delta only wanted him to hunt down his father. Well, joke was on them, he had no goddamn clue where the bastard was. But that whole thing ended up in a showdown or ten between him and his old man. More particularly the one where Drake was playing host to a Fae. It seemed like he lived another lifetime in that fight.

But more importantly, he understood their untapped power. He could rule the world. Stand at the top unchallenged. Oh, the world didn’t need to know he was in charge; after all, he worked better from the shadows. He worked better with the shadows.

“A few deaths mean nothing,” he heard himself say to the Fae as he stood before them, their minds linked with his. “You have seen what I can do. Follow me, and together we will see both Earth and Myrathelle at our feet. We will stand above Earthborn and Elf alike.”

Reality closed in on him. He was on his hands and knees, panting heavily, blood running from his nose. He probably shouldn’t have fought the inevitable, but he wasn’t just going to give in. It was the principle of the thing.

He saw their faces, a picture of disbelief. Drake said nothing. He found himself entirely unsurprised by the memories he’d just seen. There was a certain inevitability in them. He was a prominent member in Delta, the one person who could actually figure it all out. Of course this was going to happen. So that’’s how they’re going to do it.

Jayson looked at him, face inscrutable, a mask of nothing but pain. “John was my partner,” he said, his voice quiet. “He was my best friend, my brother. You have no idea how much I want—I need someone to blame for this.”

He paused, and in that moment, Drake knew he was a dead man. Jay would never believe in him, so blinded by grief. He didn’t blame him, Drake realized. Jayson had lost nearly everyone he cared about. Under the same circumstances, Drake would also believe that those left would betray him.

Jayson’s eyes were clouded with tears. He lifted a finger, and for a second Drake saw it as the hand of justice. He may not have done this, but there was plenty else he’d done that deserved death.

“But it’s not you. You are not responsible for this.”

It cost Jay to say that, Drake could tell. It meant that the search wasn’t over; that for a bit longer, John would go unavenged.

Sam broke in gently. “Mr. Allison, I know this is difficult, but the evidence suggests that—”

“Screw the evidence!” Jay yelled. “The evidence is wrong!”

“He had the means, Mr. Allison. For the past four years we’ve built an identity that would certainly impress the Fae’s bid for power. He uses fear as his weapon, the very same instrument wielded and admired by the Fae.”

Jay was shaking his head. “No. He wouldn’t hurt Charity, not in a million years. He’s in love with her, for God’s sake!”

“Which is why she is still alive.”

Jay opened his mouth to counter that, and found he couldn’t. Clever, Drake thought. It was an effective way to remove him as a piece from the board. And damn straight, he wouldn’t hurt Charity. His opponent—for he now thought of the mastermind as nothing but—had deftly figured out how to use that weakness as a strength in the case against him. Well, now it was personal.

Jay looked askance at the Elves. “Fine. Take him. On one condition. Keep him alive. Because you can be damned sure I will find out who is really involved, and trust me when I say this, you do not want to be responsible for the death of an innocent man, especially when he is one of us.””

Rio’kir raised an eyebrow. “We do not do well with threats, Jayson Allison.”

“Oh, this isn’t a threat. Except maybe when I point out the part that you’re stuck here with us.”

“In every way that matters, it has been proven that blame for our forced translocation rests on this man. You saw the evidence in his memories yourself.”

“What I saw was a mind trick, easily accomplished with the power of the Fae. Let’s not forget our enemy here.”

Rio’kir actually seemed to consider that for a moment, then continued. “Even if you did not offer him to us, we would insist he be remanded into our custody. We will deal with him as our law dictates. The penalty for this crime is death.”

“Well then, remember one thing: you owe us. All the might, all the knowledge of the Elves could not stand against Kronos. Even from his cage he wielded power. Earthborn died on your behalf, sacrificed their lives so we could fix your problem. Keep him locked up and powerless as you see fit, but do not end his life. I ask you, not as a threat, but as a favor in return for saving your world.”

Rio’kir regarded Jayson with a blank face for a moment. Drake could count his heartbeats as he waited.

“Very well. He will be kept in Atlantis with complete seclusion. But do not take forever to find more knowledge of this case. We are not in the habit of retaining prisoners indefinitely. And besides, the measures we must take to ensure he lacks his power will leave him but a shell of himself if you take too long.”

He waved his hand dismissively, and the rest of the Elves began to walk away. “Leave this place, Earthborn. You now possess our same knowledge of this unfortunate happenstance. Keep us informed, and we shall do you the same courtesy.”